11/12/2010 @ 3:00PM

The Best Colleges In The South

If you’re accepted to be a student at the best college in the South, you are guaranteed an internship, the opportunity to study abroad and graduation within four years–or the school will pay for an additional year of tuition-free study.

The benefits of attending the best college in the South don’t even stop when you receive your diploma. Within 10 months of graduation, 98% of the college’s students, on average, are employed or engaged in advanced study. Upon graduating you become part of the nation’s most loyal and generous group of alumni.

Located in the heart of Kentucky, Centre College has 1,197 undergraduate students and more than 100 faculty members, 98% of whom hold the highest degrees in their fields.

“My time at Centre has been highlighted by the professors and mentors who have guided me and the unique experiences I’ve taken part in,” says Paul Adams, a 21-year-old senior from Chicago.

In the last decade alone, Centre produced 17 Fulbright scholars, five Goldwater scholars, two Rhodes scholars and a Truman scholar. Its alumni include two U.S. vice presidents, a chief justice of the United States, 13 U.S. senators and 43 U.S. representatives.

“The education is intense and challenging, but also supportive,” says the college’s communications director, Mike Norris. “We have students saying, ‘I’ve found myself doing things at Centre that I would have never even aspired to do.’ Our students achieve beyond what they ever thought possible.”

More than 85% of Centre’s students study abroad, and to emphasize its commitment to global citizenship, the college recently implemented a program that provides a free passport to all first-year students who don’t already have one.

“Even though we’re just a small college in Kentucky, Centre students are doing great things–studying abroad in Mexico, China, England, France, Spain, Vietnam, Israel, Africa, the Bahamas and many more places worldwide, taking on the challenges of society in our classrooms and across campus, and generally making a difference,” says Elizabeth Trollinger, a 21-year-old senior from Kentucky. “Centre is a place where we are given countless chances to become active members of our society and community, and we know we’ll be able to effectively use the knowledge and skills we acquire in our four years here, no matter what comes after Centre.”

Over the last 25 years, Centre alumni have led the nation in loyalty, in terms of the percentage of graduates who make financial donations each year. “The entire Centre community seems to be knit together by two strands,” Adams says, “a firm commitment to a meaningful education and an unwavering passion for Centre herself. And for the past three years, I’ve found myself happily woven into her fabric.”

Centre is also the 24th best college in America overall, according to Forbes’ and the Center for College Affordability and Productivity’s ranking of America’s Best Colleges, which was published in August. The list ranks U.S. undergraduate institutions by the quality of the education they provide, the experiences of their students, the amount of debt students graduate with and how much they achieve. To determine the best schools in the South, we narrowed that list according to the regional divisions used by the U.S. Census Bureau; that means schools in the South are located in Alabama, Arkansas, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia and West Virginia.

Other schools that make the list of the 25 best colleges in the South include Rice University; the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill; Sweet Briar College; Johns Hopkins University; and Hendrix College.

Forbes breaks down its America’s Best Colleges list into regions because many college-bound students base their decisions on location, proximity to home and culture. For some prospective college or graduate students, a private education may be more desirable, but it typically comes with a hefty price tag. Cost of attendance at six of the top 10 private colleges in the South totals $45,000 or more a year, and the others aren’t cheap either. That doesn’t take into account any financial aid, scholarships and grants that may be available to students, but it does put those schools out of reach for many families.

The most expensive on the list of the best private colleges in the South is No. 8, Georgetown University. Tuition at the oldest Catholic university in the U.S. amounts to $54,200, and Vanderbilt University trails close behind with a total yearly cost of attendance of $52,303.

Although private colleges dominate the ranks of the best in the South, and seven of the top 10 schools in the region are privately operated, there are also plenty of excellent and more affordable public colleges. Eight of the 10 best public colleges have total costs of less than $40,000 a year, and one of them is free.

The best public college in the South is the United States Naval Academy, in Annapolis, Md. Founded in 1845, “The Academy” offers a first-class education, instills students with a strong sense of discipline and drive to succeed, and best of all, has its tuition paid by the U.S. government.

“We find that many young men and women consider our school for the leadership opportunities and well-rounded first-class education we offer,” says Naval Academy spokesman Cmdr. Joe Carpenter. “Our students seek challenge and adventure, not only during their time here at the Academy but also in the lifestyle afforded to them after graduation.” Any student who successfully completes the program is employed as an officer in the Navy or Marine Corps.

Following close behind the Naval Academy are the University of Virginia, the College of William and Mary and the Virginia Military Institute. Holding the No. 10 spot, the University of Georgia is the only newcomer to list of the best public colleges in the South.

Forbes and CCAP’s rankings are not determined largely by reputation, like many other college rankings; our list emphasizes the quality of students a school graduates, not the quality it admits. We consider how well colleges meet students’ needs, how long students take to graduate, the amount of debt they incur and post-degree employment. The staff at CCAP gather data from a variety of sources and use 11 measures in compiling the rankings. Each of those 11 measures falls into one of five general categories.

The first category is how much graduates succeed in their chosen professions after they leave school, evaluating the average salaries of graduates reported by Payscale.com (30%), the number of alumni listed in a Forbes/CCAP list of corporate officers (5%), and enrollment-adjusted entries in Who’s Who in America (10%). Next there’s how satisfied students are with their college experiences, examining freshman-to-sophomore retention rates (5%) and student evaluations of classes on the websites RateMyProfessors.com (17.5%) and MyPlan.com (5%).

Then the researchers look at how much debt students accumulate over their college careers, considering the four-year debt load for a typical student borrower (12.5%) and the overall student loan default rate (5%). Finally, they evaluate how many students actually finish their degrees in four years, considering both the actual graduation rate (8.75%) and the gap between the average rate and a predicted rate, based on characteristics of the school (8.75%). Click here for a complete methodology.